No Surprise Here: Bill Ackman Is Following Nelson Peltz's Footsteps And Buying Mondelez

Shares of Oreo maker Mondelez International Inc MDLZ opened strong on Thursday on news that activist investor Bill Ackman's hedge fund Pershing Square has acquired a $5.5 billion stake in the company.

Ackman is now the second activist investor to acquire a major stake in the company, following Trian Partners' Nelson Peltz who already sits on the company's board.

Alexia Howard, Sanford Bernstein senior analyst, was on CNBC recently to weigh in on this stake purchase by Ackman.

Not A Surprise

Related Link: Goldman Sachs Loves Everythign About Mondelez...Except For Its Stock

"We have had Nelson Peltz who started to look at this opportunity for margin improvement back in 2012 and, I think, Ackman is realizing that now is the time that a lot of this is really going to bear fruit."

Picking It At The Right Time

Howard was asked if it would be fair to say that Nelson Peltz has already done a lot of work for Ackman to do at Mondelez. She replied, "I think it's fair that the company is already on the way to seeing some major margin improvement over the next two or three years. So, yes. I guess Ackman is sort of picking it up where it's going to become much more apparent to the investment community that this is really happening.

"They started the process; we started to see margin improvement over the last 18 months or so. But it started to accelerate recently, and over the next year with lower cost plans, headcount reduction, supplier rationalization and products range narrowing, I think there's a huge oppurtunity for margin expansion beyond what people are expecting," Howard concluded.